Documents / Official release
This is a preliminary Part II transcript of the Gemini 5 (GT-5) flight crew debriefing, prepared by the Spacecraft Operations Branch of NASA's Flight Crew Support Division and dated September 2, 1965. It records astronauts Cooper and Conrad at the Crew Quarters, Cape Kennedy. They discuss how the spacecraft systems worked, including the platform and the OAMS thruster failures. The transcript also covers operational checks, visual sightings, experiments, training, premission planning, and medical aspects. It was originally classified Confidential.
From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 Incident: August 30 - September 2, 1965, Cape Kennedy, Florida. This document is a preliminary transcript (Part II) derived from voice recordings of the Gemini 5 flight crew technical debriefing. NASA conducted this debriefing between August 30, 1965, and September 2, 1965, at the Crew Quarters, Cape Kennedy, Florida. Astronauts L. Gordon Cooper and Charles “Pete” Conrad described observing debris and “snow” and “all sorts of glittering pieces of this, that and the other thing” in the “Visual Sightings” section of the document (pages 157-220).
42 Cooper Conr ad Cooper Conrad FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper out of plane , in that it hung around us so darned long. It stayed with us for 20 orbits ! We saw it until the light burned out . I t was never f ar away from us . During five night cycles it was close enough that the flashing light illuminated the spacecraft . At the proper times, when we would get nodal crossing, when we turned around and actually s aw the REP it was very close . We t hought we were going t o hit i t . It was bright enough t o illuminate the spacecraft and the flashing light r eally impress ed me . Did you take pictures? Ye s , I think we have some 70- mm Hassel blad pictures and I took 16- mm moving pictur es . That was the last of the REP exercise . I understand all t he movie film came out, too. So you ' ll have pictures of it . At this point , we wer e rapidly running out of cryo genic fuel cell oxygen. We decided t h io.t the only way we were going t o salvage the f l i ght waE to stop using it at this rapid a rate . We had to make the choice whether we were going to power down and con t i nue the f light , or whether we were gcing to end the flight very abruptly if i t continuEd going down we@t.tf 1!9l!l'it~~.
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 325 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.